Image of Seville, Spain, and the surrounding landscape. Acquired by Sentinel-2C on the 5th September. Image courtesy of Copernicus/ESA and contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA. Shared under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO license.
Today, we’re looking at a trilogy of Earth Observation (EO) satellite first light images released last week. All three satellites were launched over the last couple of months, and it is exciting to see what they are acquiring.
Sentinel-2C First Light Images
At the start of the month, we reported on the launch of the Sentinel-2C Earth Observation (EO) satellite, which went into orbit on 5th September. Last week, less than four days after launch, the European Space Agency (ESA) issued the first light images from Sentinel-2C’s multispectral imager.
The images include:
- Seville and the surrounding landscape in Southern Spain, acquired on the 13th, are shown in the image at the top of the blog.
- A long strip of coastline from the Camargue and Montpellier in southern France, down to Barcelona in Spain
- An area south of Los Angeles in California, acquired on 12th September.
- The Lighthouse Reef, part of the extensive coral reef system off the coast of Belize in Central America, acquired on the 13th. The image also shows the Great Blue Hole, a giant marine sinkhole.
Despite the release of these fantastic images, Sentinel-2C is not yet operational. It is currently being correctly calibrated as part of its commissioning phase, but everything is proceeding as expected.
We look forward to seeing this satellite’s images and data when they are released to users.
Tanger-1 First Light Images
This week Planet launched the first light images from its Tanager-1 hyperspectral satellite, which was launched on Space X’s Transporter-11 rideshare mission on 16th August.
Tanger-1 is the first hyperspectral imaging satellite from Planet, and is capable of imaging all wavelengths between 400 – 2500 nm simultaneously with 420 spectral channels.
The first light images are over Karachi, Pakistan, and were acquired on 19th September. The images include a standard RGB image, a false-colour near-infrared composite image, and false-colour shortwave infrared composite image. However, these images were created using only 6 of the satelite’s spectral bands, so there is still a lot to see!
Alongside hyperspectral images, this satellite will also provide data on greenhouse gas emissions for the nonprofit Carbon Mapper Coalition, enabling them to monitor point-source methane and CO2 emissions. This satellite is anticipated to be the first of a new constellation of hyperspectral imagers.
Like Sentinel-2C, Tanger-1 is still in the commissioning stage, and it is expected to begin delivering data to users and customers in 2025.
EOS-08 First Light Images
The final part of this trilogy is from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Earth Observing Satellite-08 (EOS-08) that was launched on 16th August.
The first light images are from the Electro-Optical Infrared Payload (EOIR) on the satellite, this is a high-resolution optical imager working across both the Mid-Wave Infrared (MIR) and Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) bands, with a spatial resolution of 8 metres.
The first light images include:
- Indian city of Pune, acquired on the 19th
- Namibia Desert acquired on the 21st
- Land surface temperature over Santiago in Chile, acquired on the 24th
Like the other two in this trio, the EOS-08 is still in its commissioning phase, undergoing calibration and validation activities.
Summary
These three new satellites continue to develop and enhance data availability for EO users. Once they all go operational, it will be interesting and exciting to see what they produce.
